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Wolfe was correct----as the wax cooled, the cutting stylus [this happened most often to Victor] began to 'chatter' through the no longer warm and thus soft wax. I'm not sure the year of the cure, but this was cured by the early 1930s by a small heating element [a few turns of wire] around the cutting stylus so that it would melt any wax that was too hard, and the high-pitched whine disappeared.

There is a good article on the Gramophone magazine from 1931 and 1932, "Defects in Gramophone Records", and it also gave the reason for these whining as wax master being too cold.

As for the examples of whining, I have several Amelita Galli-Curci records from her 1927 sessions and they all have these whining, and one of them,"The Last Rose of Summer" with Homer Samuels on the piano is the worst example of that whining. Paul Robeson's "Water Boy" from 1925 is plagued with this whining, too, and same thing happens on my copies of 1928/1929 Al Jolson records from Brunswick. Columbia seems to largely free from this fault, but I had a chance to hear Alessandro Bonci Italian Columbia record from 1926, and it had a whining at the end, although not as severe as most of Victor recordings of the period.

By the way, I wonder if there is any way to eliminate these whining sound - certainly the Galli-Curci reissue CD I have didn't have this whining.

Maybe Columbia used a thicker wax disc that cooled down slower?

syncopeter wrote:Maybe Columbia used a thicker wax disc that cooled down slower?

Maybe. It could have been a lot of things.

Perhaps they hit on the heating coil idea sooner.

I've noticed that the grooves on Columbia records in that period tend to more often play acceptably with a smaller tip, than, say Victor scrolls. Maybe the shape of the cutting styli had something to do with it. Or they were polished with something....

Just making wild inferences.

transformingArt wrote:There is a good article on the Gramophone magazine from 1931 and 1932, "Defects in Gramophone Records", and it also gave the reason for these whining as wax master being too cold.

As for the examples of whining, I have several Amelita Galli-Curci records from her 1927 sessions and they all have these whining, and one of them,"The Last Rose of Summer" with Homer Samuels on the piano is the worst example of that whining. Paul Robeson's "Water Boy" from 1925 is plagued with this whining, too, and same thing happens on my copies of 1928/1929 Al Jolson records from Brunswick. Columbia seems to largely free from this fault, but I had a chance to hear Alessandro Bonci Italian Columbia record from 1926, and it had a whining at the end, although not as severe as most of Victor recordings of the period.

By the way, I wonder if there is any way to eliminate these whining sound - certainly the Galli-Curci reissue CD I have didn't have this whining.

Resurection

Defects in Gramophone Records

http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/history/p20_4_2.html